


Instincts

by Dragondfly



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Animal Instincts, F/M, Gen, Magic, Shapechangers, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragondfly/pseuds/Dragondfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, you're telling me that Emma's magic doesn't have a survival instinct? I don't think so. Branches from 4.02.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instincts

**Author's Note:**

> This spawned from 2am sleep deprivation. I don't know where it's going, if anywhere… Anyway, enjoy!

It is so cold.

So cold her bones feel like they would crack with the slightest of movements, that the air she continues to breath in was freezing even the inner most parts of her and that her skin is turning to ice.

The cold is all consuming. It is everywhere.

It is everything.

She could not think past this cold, not even to thoughts of warmth, of Henry, David or Mary Margaret. Killian.

Their faces had blurred together in her cold addled brain, leaving nothing but hyperawareness of the fact her fingers were slowly turning blue.

Another shuddering breath whispers over cracked lips and dry throat, so cold it burns, and all she wants to do is curl tighter around herself, but she can’t the cold is too paralyzing. The ice beneath her is slowly freezing to her clothes and the exposed flesh of her hands, almost as if it’s trying to encase her inch by inch.

Emma highly doubts Elsa is even aware her powers are still slowly building this icy fortress. If Emma was in a clearer thinking frame of mind, she might have realized it was Elsa’s panicked survival instinct doing this, not her active will. But she isn’t.

All she is, is cold.

Distantly, she thinks she hears David’s voice, but with her eyes slowly closing, she can’t see him.

Everything is becoming muffled, her hearing dimming, her sight fading, she can barely even feel the icy ground beneath her body, nor even the touch of her clothes against her now blue skin. She is beyond even the smallest of shivers at this point, her body so physically exhausted that movement is impossible.

She is dying.

Slowly but surely, her body is freezing and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

She is helpless.

She will never see her family again.

She will die.

With that train of thought just dancing through her scattered mind, Emma Swan finally passes out.

And something awakens.

Deep within her core, something sparks to light, faint and spluttering at first, but growing stronger and stronger as her heartbeat grows weaker. It begins just behind the failing heart, a spot of warmth in the midst of ice and, as it grows stronger, begins to spread.

Emma’s magic, fighting for her survival, that instinct that allowed her to survive all those years of abandonment and living on the street, alone but for herself. And now that magic, tapped into that same instinct, is the only thing that can save her.

This magic is now coursing through her body, struggling in its primal way to find away to survive.

And then it does.

At Emma’s side, Elsa suddenly goes quiet in her conversation with David, her magic finally sensing that something is changing.

“Elsa?” David’s voice rings out, but the walkie-talkie is long forgotten as the Ice Queen stares in awe at the happenings at her feet.

Gone is the frozen women who tried so hard to save Elsa even though it has nearly cost her her life, and left in its place is a glowing form of brilliant white light. Stepping away, Elsa can only watch in wonder as, underneath that blazing light, the figure begins to change.

As the voices from the strange box in her hand grow more and more frantic, the man with the hook adding his cries for information as well, Elsa cannot speak. She has never seen magic like this. Never imagined magic could do this.

The white light begins fade and Elsa lifts a hand to cover her mouth in shock. Emma is gone.

In her place is a massive white wolf.

As she stares, the beast scrambles onto its paws and shakes itself vigorously, before looking around curiously, it movements slightly disjointed and jumpy. It’s eyes, startlingly human in the face of a predator, meet Elsa’s and stare. They seem to drill into her soul, Emma’s eyes seeking something as they watch her. Tension hums between the two and fear trills down Elsa’s spine. While she knows that this wolf is Emma, it is still a wolf and Elsa couldn’t even begin to guess how much of the Sheriff remains in this form.

Ever so slowly, Elsa drops her gaze to the floor, hoping it will appease any instincts that Emma may be feeling and prove to the wolf she is no threat. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches the large nose snuffle the air and the ears move individual to each other, one aimed toward the talking box, the other swiveling about.

And then the tension breaks.

Emma drops to the ground with a huff, forepaws stretched out in front of her and head resting heavily upon them, seemingly uninterested in Elsa or anything else within the icy cavern.

Raising a shaking hand, Elsa clicks the button on the talking box and cuts into the shouts still emanating from it, saying a simple, “I think I can take it down now.”

Then she drops the contraption and lifts her hands, taking one last look at the wolf to her side who continues to watch her with patients, its presence comforting and encouraging even after the tension that arose only moments ago.

“I can do this,” Elsa whispers to herself and blinks when the wolf nods slightly in agreement.

Stealing her resolve, Elsa closes her eyes and thinks back to what David was saying just before Emma changed. She concentrates on the warm presence of that white wolf near her feet and feels her magic surge.

The wall before her begins to crack, fissures forming in the ice, before a large portion of the wall crashes down, leaving behind a gaping hole large enough to escape through. A grin flies onto Elsa’s face, because she did it, she actually managed to do it, and it quickly stutters into surprise when she feels a warm and rough tongue lick her hand gently.

Before she can say anything, the Emma wolf who has risen to its paws, drops her head and picks up the word box in careful jaws, before padding towards the exit Elsa has created.

 

.

 

Just a small amount, barely breaking through the ever present cold, but its enough to stir Emma into consciousness.

Something is happening.

That tiny sliver of warmth is spreading, slowly warming her core and reaching out tendrils into her arms and legs, pooling every so often before spreading further into her farthest extremities. Behind closed eyelids, things are growing lighter until white light seems to blaze and she wants to flinch away from the brightness, but it doesn’t hurt. In fact, it is almost comforting.

For a second, Emma is reminded of her mother.

Then the thought drifts away along the stream of flowing warmth that is now filling her entire body.

And then everything stops.

The light fades, the warmth halts its spread, and the world seems to hold its breath.

And then Emma opens her eyes.

Blinking once, Emma lets out a soft breath, and slowly rises to her feet, still out of it and confused, barely noticing how her body seems to edge just beyond her control. Once fully on her feet, she shakes her head and blinks when her entire body follows suit.

That’s when it clicks. That and the realization that she can suddenly see her nose and it is certainly not that of a human, protruding far from her face and coated in white fur. She is a wolf.

But there is no room for surprise, the combination of the sudden jump from cold to warm along with the relatively calm wolf brain that seems to have appeared alongside her own effectively rattling any sort of emotional response out of her. So, instead of acknowledging her sudden change in form, she begins to look around curiously. And her nose twitch.

Instantly, her head snaps around to stare at the blue figure standing just to her left, the faint presence that has joined her in her head growling a faint warning. But the savior is quickly able smother it and focuses on the figure she distantly recognizes as Elsa.

She can’t drop her gaze though.

Something stops her.

So she stares, and the fur on the nape of her neck begins to bristle.

But then Elsa looks at the icy ground and Emma is suddenly freed from the urge. So she takes to sniffing at the air, amazed at how the smells seem to dance their way through the cold air, and listening to the sounds that echo about the cavern. Particularly the voices of Hook and David crackling through the speakers.

Not even realizing she does so, Emma lowers herself to the ground, stretching forepaws out in front of her and resting her head on them.

(She can’t even begin to handle everything that’s happening to her right now; the very idea of the fact she’s no longer even a human has shaken her to her very core. So she’s ignoring it, pushing it into that ever growing box in the back of her head where all of her secret fears and hopes and denials go.

And focusing only on the fact that she is no longer dying. That she’s warm. That she will _survive_.

But there’s only so long that the lock on the box will hold for this one. It’s a good thing the wolf mind seems generally unaffected by what is going on around them; it’s easy to sink back into it and just think in the here and now.)

Elsa finally speaks into the walkie-talkie in her hand, cutting through the shouting like a knife, and promptly drops the device in order to raise her hands. As she does so, the Ice Queen spares a glance towards were she lays and murmurs something under her breath. Emma gives her an encouraging nod, lifting her tail in a slight wag.

(A tail. Her tail. On her body. That she can move. Because she’s a wolf.

Goddamn magic.)

The swirl of magic lifts the thick white fur along her spine and she fights a sneeze as the ice magic tickles her hyper sensitive nose. And then it’s gone, the mad swirl of wind dropping to silence as the ice wall succumbs to Elsa’s magic.

Time to go.

Rising to her paws in one smooth moment, Emma reaches out and licks one of Elsa’s hands gently, the only way to show her thanks in her current state, before dipping her head and picking up the fallen walkie-talkie in her teeth. The scents that cling to it surge into her nose, Elsa and herself, touches of David and even a little bit of Killian. And lastly, just the faintest trace of a scent she thought she would never smell again.

But it’s time to leave.

So, with one final shake to shed away the ice crystals that have formed in her fur, Emma takes the first step towards the outside, where she knows her father and Killian are waiting.


End file.
